“Beast,” released in theaters on Aug. 19, follows recently widowed father Nate Samuels (Idris Elba), and his two daughters, Meredith (Lyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries) throughout their South African vacation to visit their late mother’s home. However, the family is faced with a vengeful lion that seeks to kill anyone in its path after local poachers killed its pride.
I felt like the storyline was similar to the movie “The Shallows,” released in June 2016. It had a very similar message when it came to the plot and how an animal was out to get the main characters. I think that this plot line is very overdone, which is why I personally did not enjoy “Beast.” Nowadays, there are a lot more ideas for genres and plot. I felt as if they copied similar movies, but changed the animal and setting.
Throughout the movie, there are a lot of intense moments where the viewer knows something bad is about to happen. Although the plot is very predictable, the viewer has a sense of excitement when anything thrilling happens in the movie. It is action-packed with some moments of grief from the recently widowed father. “Beast” has moments where you realize that sometimes you need to forgive people because you are never sure how long you have with the people in your life.
The director, Baltasar Kormákur, shows how killing a lion’s whole pride can ultimately turn into a fight for your life. The location for the movie was perfect for the storyline, as well as the lighting when it was nighttime.The director did a good job of capturing fear and making the audience feel what the actors were feeling. While the movie is 93 minutes long, I think if it were any longer, it would have been too long and drawn out. Elba did an excellent job for his part, but I think that Jeffries could have played her part better than she did. I found myself annoyed with her acting at certain points because of the lack of emotion she showed during the intense scenes.
This action/adventure movie truly shows how far you will go for people you love and this is shown in the last ten minutes of the movie, which I think was the best scene. Although I usually like action/adventure movies, this one was not as good as I was expecting. I felt at some points the scenes were too long and in certain scenes, I felt like I knew what was coming next because things started to get crazy early on. The acting of Jeffries’ emotions and delivery of her lines could have been much better. I had high hopes for the movie because I enjoy Elba as an actor. He did a phenomenal job for his part, but the rest of the movie could have been better if different actresses were chosen to play the daughters. The movie shows how you will fight for your life and go to any length just to make sure your family will survive.
Overall, the movie plot was very predictable when it came to what was going to happen at the end of the movie, as well as what each character was going to do.
